


Connexion

by Brynnen, TwaCorbies (Brynnen)



Series: The continuing adventures of Jyn and Bodhi [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate universe - some survived, Badass Ladies, Bechdel Test Pass, Everyone is orphaned, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Jynn has two daddies, Philosophy, Strategy & Tactics, everyone else didn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 09:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11438160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Brynnen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/TwaCorbies
Summary: Neither Jyn nor Leia has the stomach for celebrating in the wake of so many losses. Ditching the party was a start, but meeting a figure each had only heard rumours of proves interesting.Two legends, a crate and the Empire.





	Connexion

Jyn closed the door silently behind herself, immediately halving the volume of the party still going on in the big hangar. She felt tired and too sick at heart to stay in that celebration a moment longest. So help her, if anyone had tried keeping her there they'd be carrying their face home in a bag.

  
'Let them have their victory.' Mon Mothma had said, 'Let them have something to cling to during the long interrogations, the being hunted by stormtroopers. Does it matter why they fight, or only that they do?'  
Jyn had left her to her philosophical musings, attended the bloody party as requested and then got out as early as possible, hoping Bodhi didn't notice.

  
A movement in the shadows had her grabbing for a blaster she didn't have before she registered the bright white fabric of her dress. There was only one person on base who wore that style, beside Mon Mothma and she preferred more of an off-white. Maybe because she knew her hands were too bloodstained to pretend purity.

  
'Captain Organa.'

  
'Sergeant Erso.' The other woman needed a moment to place her. Then her regal expression shifted to something a bit more friendly. 'You trying to escape the revelry too?'

  
Jyn nodded and hopped up onto a packing crate next to the princess. Leia was a legend forming almost in front of her, like that blond farmboy she was a figure who'd taken the bloodsoaked sacrifice of nearly everyone left that Jyn had cared for and converted it to glory. Jyn wanted to hate her, but all she felt was tired, tired and brimful of the grief that hadn't left her since Jedha.

  
The Death Star was gone.

  
'Tonight aside, it's going to be a long, hard struggle.' Leia said out loud, not looking at her.

  
Jyn snorted. 'No kidding. How do you even take on the Empire? Resistance is all very well, but how are we actually going to defeat it? It's huge.'

  
'It might take my whole life, or even longer, but we've got to make it happen.' The way her jaw set, Jyn saw a wealth of stubbornness in Leia's personality.

  
'You have a strategy, or is that just cussedness there?' That came out harsher than she intended, as harshly as she felt. Jyn didn't care, so what if she upset the princess, with her ornate hairstyle and those elegant white dresses? She looked like the scum she was next to that elegance.

  
'Have you got one?' Leia fired back at the scarred fighter. It was easy to criticise, but did she have anything to offer the rebellion beyond who her fathers had been?

  
Jyn snorted again. 'Every strike's got to cost them more than it costs us, it's got to improve things for the ordinary people who didn't ask to be part of the Empire and it needs to hurt them somewhere important. A raid needs to hit something of strategic, military, resource or logistical importance, not just remind them that we hate their guts.' She remembered Saw's spiralling fanaticism, the raids just to see Imperial blood spill. All it had done was get people killed.

  
'You're right, but it also has to replace the Empire, or at least work with people who will manage, administrate once the Empire is gone from any given world.'

  
Jynn nodded. 'Freedom doesn't fill your belly or keep you warm.'

  
Leia gave her a tiny smile that didn't have anything to do with happiness. 'And the Empire's habit of trampling all factions equally has crushed any meaningful diplomacy. The core worlds especially may well fall into chaos without the stabilising influence of the Empire. It's huge, not just taking down the Empire, but making sure what replaces it is an improvement.'

  
'Is that where you come in, Organa?' Jyn looked down at the crate, stencilled with the mark of a farm equipment manufacturer, one of Organa's friend Solo's smuggled shipments. Looking at the woman she must be a similar age to her, not much older maybe.

  
The woman laughed. 'I'm from a diplomatic, political family, not civil engineering or agriculture or military tactics. I don't have the answers any more than you do, but for the sake of the people we're fighting to free, we'd better get our heads together and work something out.'

  
Jyn blinked, the pretty face with suspiciously fancy clothes and hair had lifted her eyes from the blood and horror to set her view on a better future. It made her feel ashamed. 'I'm not that high-minded. I just fell into this.' Or was thrust, seemingly by every man she'd known but Bodhi.

  
Leia looked at the other woman, sat beside her and swung her legs, letting her heels drum idly against the crate. Jyn Erso could be so much more than the sullen, bitter presence she currently was. She could be more than just another blaster for the cause, the way she'd pulled her doomed team together to get the plans, then dragged their corpses and that poor boy back so their bodies wouldn't be lost to the Empire... That spoke of something more than the bitter, single-minded, narrow-focussed footsoldiers the cause had so many of.

  
'You're not that high-minded yet.' But she would be.

  
Leia brought her contacts and diplomatic background to the cause, joining voluntarily and yes, maybe these days looking for vengeance in the wake of the destruction of Alderaan and nearly everyone she'd ever loved. Meanwhile, this scruffy thief had been bullied and nagged into the cause by the late Captain Andor, even as so much of her own life had been destroyed, but somewhere on that ill-fated mission a transformation had happened. You could see it in the way she held her head up, the way she was still here.

  
Jyn scoffed. 'Yet.' But there was a warmth in her light-coloured eyes at Leia's faith.

  
'I believe.' Leia shrugged, 'If I didn't believe in the cause and its people, I wouldn't be here.'

  
Jyn watched the beautiful brunette slide off the crate, landing softly in a flurry of white drapery. Organa looked up at her with huge dark eyes that shone with a wealth of experience and an odd, subtle humour that reminded her of Chirrut. She gave a regal nod. 'I look forward to working with you, Sergeant Erso.'

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't see reference to Leia having a rank in the rebels at this point, but she's a crown princess of Alderaan who's been with this branch of the resistance longer than Jyn, so she gets a captain designation.
> 
> I just wanted to imagine these two incredible, courageous female characters getting to chew the fat together.
> 
> Writing this I realised, Leia come to the rebellion via her father, despite the fact her mother was higher-ranking (what with being queen to his consort) while Jynn was forced into it do to the actions of both her fathers (I absolutely believe Saw was as much a father to Jyn as Galen, he had 10 years to Galen's 6 of raising and influencing her and clearly loves her, even through his fanaticism and lousy communication skills). Then later Rey's story is powered by not knowing her father (yet Finn gets a 'who am I and can I impress this pretty, badass lady storyine). Apparently even a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away the patriarchy still remains strong. 
> 
> The film universe could stand to learn that woman can have their own motivations outside of their fathers.
> 
> This series may be very sporadic. I don't get many chances to write at the moment, hence a structure of one-shots in the same AU continuity being haphazardly strung together.


End file.
